Guest blog post written by Jane F. Gilgun, PhD. LICSW, Tina Barr, MSW, PhD Cand., University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA

Each morning, children at Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in West Baltimore start their school day with 15 minutes of yoga and meditation. When students are disruptive, they don’t go to the principal’s office, but to the Mindful Me room where they calm down through breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, and mindful movement. They also learn conflict management skills. Once they have mastered these skills, they teach each other. The school’s principal, Carillian Thompson, reports that since implementing these practices two years ago, suspensions have gone to zero. The school no longer has a detention room.

Children experience self-regulation when they do yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises. This means they relax their bodies and their minds. They have a regulated brain. They are in states of self-regulation, where their thinking, feelings, and movements are calm and relaxed.

Teachers, administrators, aides, and even the janitors at the Coleman School understand and support the students’ mindfulness-based practices. Many of them practice with the students and on their own. Parents, the PTA, and the school board support the implementation of mindfulness-based practices at the school.

The lessons learned at the Coleman School are transferrable to child welfare practice and to other agencies that work with children who have issues with self-regulation. Like many of the children at the Coleman School, children in child welfare and in special education for behavioral problems often have experienced complex trauma. Complex trauma is composed of two or more adversities that overwhelm capacities for coping and that affect development and capacities for concentration, attention, and self-regulation in a variety of ways. If children have the safety of secure relationships and learn to cope with the effects of trauma, they are unlikely to act out in ways that harm self and others. They will have capacities for self-regulation.

Children involved in child welfare, however, often have families who have their own issues with complex trauma that can affect parents’ capacities for forming secure attachments with their children. Parents are unable to provide the emotional availability and support that children require to develop capacities for self-regulation. Parents as well as children benefit from mindfulness-based practices.

Child welfare social workers and other professions who work with persons who have issues related to complex trauma often have secondary trauma, and they, too, benefit from mindfulness-based practices. To be effective, professionals require clear minds and not the emotional pain associated with secondary trauma.

In child welfare practice as well as in schools and other organizations that serve families and children with complex trauma, mindfulness-based practices become systems issues. This means that if children who learn mindfulness practices are to sustain their mindfulness in the many environments in which they live their lives, then the persons with whom they interact would have to practice mindfulness, too. Parents, siblings, teachers, youth workers, child welfare social workers, and others who work with children and young people will be most effective if they too engage in mindful practices.

Mindfulness is a state of awareness of one’s bodily sensations, perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors without judgment. This awareness leads to a clear mind and a relaxed body. In states of mindfulness, persons have capacities for self-regulation and also have good executive function, where they think clearly and anticipate consequences, In such states of mindfulness, they act in prosocial ways and not in ways that harm self and others. Service providers are most effective when they engage in mindfulness-based practices.

Among mindfulness activities in which child welfare professionals can engage and introduce to the children and parents are breathing exercises, guided imagery, meditation, nature walks, body scans, and sensory explorations. These and other activities can be as brief as a few minutes and can be carried out in many settings, making them ideal to use with children and families in various contexts.

We have developed a four-part video series on complex trauma, self-regulation, and mindfulness-based practices. In addition, you can find more resources on the CASCW  Facebook and Twitter page over the next week.

Additional Resources

References

CBS News (2016, October 26). How meditation is making a “huge difference” in one Baltimore school. CBS This Morning. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/meditation-students-mindful-moments-program-robert-w-coleman-elementary-school/

National Child Stress Network (n.d.). Complex Trauma. Retrieved from http://www.nctsn.org/trauma-types/complex-trauma

Gaines, J. (2016, September 22). This school replaced detention with meditation. The results are stunning. Upworthy. Retrieved from http://www.upworthy.com/this-school-replaced-detention-with-meditation-the-results-are-stunning